Canceled Lorde Concert Prompts First Use of Israel’s Anti-Boycott Law

The plaintiffs “were hurt by the show’s cancellation. They are fans of the singer, went immediately to purchase tickets as soon as they heard she is coming to Israel — they were very enthusiastic, had planned on going together,” Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the lawyer who filed the suit, said in an interview. For the teenagers, she said, “There is also the national side to the lawsuit. As citizens of this country, as citizens who will next year serve this country in the military or civil service, they were hurt from the B.D.S. movement.”

Adam Keller, a spokesman for Gush Shalom, a group that has unsuccessfully challenged the law, said he was not sure that an Israeli court would accept the idea that “being deprived of the pleasure of listening to your favorite singer would be considered damage.”

“There is also a serious question to whether Israeli law can even apply to people in another country,” he said. “Only on things that are considered universal laws, like genocide or piracy, is that normally accepted.”

Any attempt to enforce a judgment in such a case, he said, could quickly become a diplomatic problem for Israel.

One of the defendants in the Lorde case, Ms. Sachs, wrote on Twitter that when she first learned of the suit, she thought it might not be true. Later, she wrote, she learned that it was “a stupid stunt.”

Opponents of the law said they were surprised that it had not been invoked earlier, considering that advocacy of anti-Israel boycotts is not rare.

Israel is not the only nation with anti-boycott laws. Since the 1970s, American laws enacted specifically with Israel in mind have prohibited companies from taking part in boycotts of any nation, unless the boycotts are sanctioned by the United States government. In France, advocacy of anti-Israel boycotts can be considered a hate crime.